A Spiderman fan lives in this house. Don’t ask me why she loves Spiderman, she just does. So of course the Leapster Spiderman game had to be on her list of wants for her birthday! I am not that thrilled with it but she does like it. There are so many songs/movies/stories that you can’t click through to get to the game! I think that she likes it just because it is Spiderman. One frustrating part is that it was hard to click on things in the game with the Leapster pen. This did not mean our game was not calibrated as it works perfectly in other games, just not this one. It takes a bit to get it just in the right place to click on items, frustrating me and my daughter!
There is a Read and Play part where the story is written out at the top while we see the movie on the screen. Each screen is changed by a spider logo. The Spiderman song is played throughout. There is no way to hurry through the story, it takes time for the movie to play before you can click on to the next page. Touching people in the movie reel will have them speak about what is happening in the story. Touching words will have the word said out loud. As the story ends, the Green Goblin comes on the screen and says he will change not only signs but the whole story!
The story: Spiderman takes pictures with a camera and finds that someone is impersonating him who is putting up misspelled traffic signs! The impersonator changes clothes and everyone sees the real Spiderman trying to fix the sign and assumes it is HIM who did it. Now the newspaper says he is wanted. Spiderman thinks up a way to prove he is not the bad guy. As Spiderman investigates, the bad guys see him and try to drop something on him. (My daughter was so mad at how Spiderman is treated!) The Green Goblin shows up and his laugh is loud in the story while the other words/sounds are not out loud. Of course everything works out for Spiderman as the story ends.
Read With Me has the same story but is read to the viewer. Players do nothing to move the story along, it changes screens automatically. Trying to move it along will have it ask if you want to Read and Play instead where after each screen plays, the story is only changed once the player clicks the arrow key.
Choose a Chapter is the same story but you can pick a chapter in the story to read. The options include Read and Play or Read With Me.
Goblin’s Challenge has sentences that have words changed by the Goblin. This is the one part that was difficult to get the pen to touch exactly the word we wanted or the diamond. The diamond causes the sentence to be read aloud. “Spiderman is a super zero” is one of the sentences that the player has to change to the right sentence from the story. “Keep trying bug brain!” says the Goblin to kids or “If I were keeping score, I would give you a big zero. Then the player changes the word into the right word…hero instead of zero. The name calling was unnecessary especially when our pens weren’t doing right!
Darkroom Doodle has two levels. Spiderman is in a dark room and sees mixed up words. Players put the letters in right order to make a word. There is a time limit to get a bonus. My daughter enjoyed this game best.
Web Sling game: Peter Parker is told to check the facts about his story. First players practice slinging webs. We see Spiderman’s hands ready to sling a web then hit left or right arrow keys, then the A button. There is a time limit, shown by web fluid amount. Once it runs out, the game is over. The questions ask about what happened in the story. Then sling a web at the correct answer. The box is highlighted once you move the arrow key to the boxes.
Snapshot is my favorite game. It has two levels. Spiderman is looking at signs in the town and is taking pictures of the ones spelled wrong. Money is collected for each sign collected. It is kind of hard as only a small portion of the city is shown and you have to move around by the left and right arrow keys. I would have liked a zoom out option! You can zoom in and out but only up to a certain sign. So options are zoom way out so you can’t see the words on the signs or zoom way in until you can see the word on the sign. I also wanted more time as I enjoyed this game so much! Signs are on billboards, traffic, cars, airplanes, and more.
Control Panel has two levels. Here Spiderman has to make code words to get inside of a building. This is done by changing a word such as bug to rug, tug, etc. If you wait too long, Spiderman will do it. Options are different letters to choose from to make a new word such as the word to change is sad, the letters given to choose from are m, t, s, and e. Spiderman starts singing the ABCs at times.
More stories would have been nice as this Leapster game is not going to engage children for very long! We got tired of the same Spiderman story over and over from the first week we had this game! A bigger space to touch with the pen would have also been great as it is so difficult and frustrating to hit the right place or letter in the games! It is Spiderman though, my daughter is happy! Recommended for children just starting to read!
